What a January

January was a wonderful month; we visited family, had friends visit, enjoyed 70+ degree days outside and are anxiously anticipating the sale of our WI house. Personally I'm still acclimating to the warmer winters with limited or no snow. I suspect the family is as well, as we are take the opportunity to get outside and visit parks more than ever.

The Overland Park Arboretum is quite close to our apartment. With no playground equipment at the Arboretum it is not the girls favorite, but it offers photographic opportunities throughout the year. Even though the temperature dropped nearly 40 degrees from Wednesday to Friday this week, Christine and I spent half an hour at the Arboretum bird feeder station taking pictures Friday morning after dropping the girls off at school. It was wonderful to spend time outside with my wife and cameras, as we do not often take time to do this activity together with the girls activities consuming much of our time.

The downside of warm winters are less days where I am housebound. As such, I am behind on our photographs.  Hopefully I'll get them edited in the coming weeks to share our ice skating adventures, visit from friends and rope park, and our trip to Oklahoma City with my parents. Until then, enjoy the birds! Any speculation on who took which photo?

Tufted Titmouse are common in the south east and here but rare at our previously locations. 

     

I prefer the beauty of the female Northern Cardinals compared to the male.

 

Dark-eyed Junco subspecies coloration vary greatly. Here are the "Slate-colored" and "Oregon" males.